That being said, I do think it’s important to avoid fallacious reasoning — it helps in making arguments clearer. As mentioned above, just because someone uses a fallacy doesn’t mean their conclusion is wrong, but it does mean that you can prove their argument wrong. (And any reply should ideally be phrased in these terms: ‘your argument has problem X’ is easier to respond to than ‘your argument has fallacy Y’.) Furthermore it means they are thinking less clearly than they perhaps should be.
That being said, I do think it’s important to avoid fallacious reasoning — it helps in making arguments clearer. As mentioned above, just because someone uses a fallacy doesn’t mean their conclusion is wrong, but it does mean that you can prove their argument wrong. (And any reply should ideally be phrased in these terms: ‘your argument has problem X’ is easier to respond to than ‘your argument has fallacy Y’.) Furthermore it means they are thinking less clearly than they perhaps should be.